There have been numerous and varied types of liquid dispensing systems for filling beverage containers which, for the most part, employ relatively complex operating arrangements and control elements, but to my knowledge, none of them meet the need for a relatively simple, positive acting and highly efficient system for meeting a long standing problem in the art. This problem has arisen in connection with a so-called bag supplied ingredient system wherein water, as such, carbonated water or salt free water is supplied by a pressurized line to a dispensing station, and liquid ingredients are separately supplied from individual, chemically inert container bags. Each bag usually has a capacity of about two to five gallons of liquid. At the dispensing station, the water and the usual other two liquid ingredients, namely the syrup and the sweetener are mixed by adjustable regulators in proportioned amounts in accordance with a desired formula, and then the mixture is fed into a drinking cup or container for the customer's use.
After a period of use, although the owner of the dispensing unit may try to provide a content of each of the liquid ingredient containing bags roughly corresponding to the proportions of the desired mix, one bag will become exhausted before another, usually the syrup, with the result that one or more ingredients will be lost from the dispensing content. Also, the proprietor may desire to change the mixing proportions and ingredients from time to time. There is, thus, an important need for, in some way, immediately fully stopping the mixing and dispensing operation to enable a replacement bag to be installed before any further dispensing occurs. In other words, the entire operation should positively and immediately be stopped in order that the customer will not be disappointed with a deficient drink content and thus become a candidate for a competitor's product.
The need has also been to accomplish such a type of operational control in such a manner as to avoid an increase in dispensing unit apparatus size or space requirements, and also, in such a manner as to avoid the need for and the expense of replacing presently available or installed dispensing equipment or its operating elements.
Heretofore, the approach has been to, in some way, redesign the apparatus elements, thereby necessitating, discarding and replacing or enlarging a present equipment set-up in such a manner as to not only become highly complex and expensive, but also as to contravene installation limited space requirements.
In this connection, one approach was to provide extra bag or container units and then when one bag is emptied, to switch connections from the empty unit to a full unit. This not only takes up additional space, but requires a more complex system of operating elements, and especially when two or more types of liquids are required for the mixing operation. See the Hansen U.S. Pat. No. 3,140,012 and the Johnson U.S. Pat. No. 3,055,551. Also, there has been single ingredient or premixing mixed drink dispensing equipment that shuts-off when, for example, there is not a sufficient, full cup or serving, see the Gust, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,414. The problem solved by my invention is represented by the space wasting equipment devised for only independently controlling each of a series of liquid dispensing units, see U.S. Pat. of Diebel, et al. No. 3,537,616. The Harde U.S. Pat. No. 3,465,915 is also representative of a system involving the same problem.